Brides Say Videographer Never Delivered

[James Manford]

Originally Posted by Don Bloom

Chris,
I think it goes a bit with the thinking that "hey, I can handle it. I'll sit in front of the computer for 60 hours a week and just pound these things out no problem. I need and want the money"
THEN reality sets in. You get bored in front of the computer doing the same thing over and over again. You want and do go out for lunch, longer and longer. You take longer breaks, you answer email, read the on line forums ;-) make a few phone calls.
People sometimes over estimate what they are capable of doing and underestimate the amount of work they have piled on the desk.
Like I said, greedy or stupid, not both at once!

Biggest problem I have is creativity levels deteriorating with a lot of time spent on the computer.

I feel my freshest in the morning, which is when I do the bulk of my editing.

I simply can't do it late at night, or after a meal.

Empty stomach, early in the morning after waking up. Always have clean, fresh ideas then!

I dread to think what it would be like working on multiple projects without completing the one I started first!

Everyones different though ... but atleast I know what I can and can't handle.

[Don Bloom]

James, I too am an early morning guy. I sometimes star editing at 6AM or even earlier because by about 3 PM my mind simply doesn't want to work. Not to say I haven't pulled all nighters but I'm too damn old to be doing that anymore. ;-)

[Warren Kawamoto]

After watching the story, I see he's shooting everything with DSLRs. I'm willing to bet that he's in over his head with editing, after realizing how much time it really takes to edit a good product with such a massive hodgepodge of scattered clips. He probably realized too late that $550-$1000 was too low, but now he's stuck. He can't edit quickly enough, and everyone wants their money back even if he has no cashflow.

[Chris Hewitt]

I'm the opposite of you James and Don...after 9pm, it feels like I enter a zone where everything opens up creatively, whether it's video related or recording music, it's always been that way for me.
Before noon, there's no muse at all.I think that's why I've always steered clear of a 9 to 5 job.
I know there's night time people and morning people, even in one family.

[Eric Coughlin]

For at least a dozen couples, their wedding memories might be gone forever.

Sounds like an amnesia epidemic is sweeping the area.

[Rob Cantwell]

I was reading on a Irish site here where a husband and wife team doing stills i think, collected lots of Euros from people, then up sticks and emigrated to South Africa leaving the couples high and dry! not a chance they'll get their money back.

Theres unscrupulous and dishonest opportunist everywhere eh?

[Adrian Tan]

Another thought as to why this situation might have occurred (a partial explanation, not an exculpation): he might have started as a photographer. This would fit in with him opening a portrait business after the video business. I've seen it before that photographers jump blindly into video, and then find it's different from stills. They feel lost and don't know what they're doing on day of shoot, their footage is a nightmarish mess of many short clips of shakiness and overexposure and out of focus, and it takes them ages to edit anything afterwards, not least because they're still learning how to navigate in their editor.

[Don Bloom]

Adrian,
To me it doesn't matter what he did before or what his excuse is. Unless he died and has no one else to edit his footage, he scammed people and gave ALL of us a black eye. If he couldn't do the work then he should have slowed himself down or stopped until he figured out how or what to do so no one lost their footage or money. He should be happy that I was not one of his clients.
I can understand being a bit slow but doing what he did, I give no quarter. I am not as forgiving as you might be, but then again there are crooks in every facet of life and there are 2 kinds of people I hate. Crooks and liars. He's both.

[D.J. Ammons]

I also almost laughed myself out of my chair watching him run out his back door, across the parking lot, and over the guardrail with that reporter chasing him.

He is a scam artist through and through. If that was not clear in the first part of the story once you see he closed Sure Shot and reopened somewhere else under another name and continued doing the same thing there is no doubt.

I hope they take everything he owns to cover the half million dollar judgement and that they press criminal charges for theft and he goes to jail.